


We're the new face of failure

by falloutboiruto



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
Genre: Absent Parents, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Coming Out, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, Female Friendship, Feminist Themes, Femslash, Group chat, Internalized Homophobia, LGBTQ Themes, Lesbian Character, Pining, Redemption, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-04-24 06:46:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19167940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falloutboiruto/pseuds/falloutboiruto
Summary: Sometimes Sarada was absolutely furious about the hole in her heart her Dad’s absence had created.





	1. Prettier and younger, but not any better off

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying something new here so bear with me!   
> DISCLAIMER: this is absolutely not meant as a sasuke or sasusaku bashing fanfic but it does criticize him/the ship a bit in an angsty fashion BUT it all works out in the end dw
> 
> beta read by: reaperduckling  
> titles from various fall out boy songs

“Look at this cool shuriken move Mr. Sasuke taught me!” Boruto said over-excitedly and threw his shuriken towards the training grounds dartboard. He just barely missed.

Sarada had, of course, taught herself that move perfectly _years_ ago by herself, but she felt like she should be nice.

“That’s great!” Sarada cheered while golf-clapping.

“Congratulations,” Mitsuki dead-panned, but sincere in his own way.

Sarada decided to gently nudge Boruto on the right path by demonstrating the proper way to do it. Her shuriken embedded itself so deeply into the tree stump that the dartboard cracked in half.

“Just like Mr. Sasuke did it!” Boruto said, and then started talking about Ninja Bout to Mitsuki(who seemed to have nothing to add to the conversation but let him ramble on anyway).

Sarada gritted her teeth, but let it go.

-*-

Being a girl was kind of like being trapped within the confines of everyone’s expectations and having double the responsibilities yet reaping half the praise. But at least Sarada had confidantes.

-*-

“Mom, did you ever feel responsible for everyone in your Team’s emotional wellbeing, and constantly blame yourself for the slightest mistake?” Sarada asked.

Sakura just winced in response. Twice.

 “It was _that_ bad?” Sarada said incredulously.

“Oh my god. _Yes_. It really was _that_ bad,” Sakura said while leaning on the kitchen counter. “I still feel that way, honestly. As a woman, you kind of have to carry the fami _-I mean_ , the team’s entire emotional baggage. It’s just part of the job. But nevermind that, I’m going to have to clean something to get my mind off things!”

Sakura then promptly started wiping the counter with a washcloth. The smell of strong cleaning chemicals wafted through the room and met Sarada’s nostrils, almost making her dizzy.

Sarada just wished her dad was home more often. He was trying now, she supposed.

Just before Sarada went to her room, she got a glimpse of her Mom’s hands. They were a raw-looking pinkish red. They looked like they hurt, but Sarada didn’t ask about it. She didn’t want to know.

-*-

 

”Cho Cho, did you ever hear about the girl whose lips fell off after she applied too much lip gloss?” Sarada asked. She was mostly joking and had mostly good intentions.

The sitch was: Sarada herself lounging in a bean bag chair in Cho Cho’s room at her request to have a sleep-over for the night and Cho Cho was sitting on the floor in front of her giant ‘outfit picture-taking’-mirror putting on so much lip gloss that it was beginning to look a lot like drool. Or possibly like she had slugs for lips. But of course, Sarada wouldn’t point that out. Her gentle, guiding approach was much more appropriate.

“No, why?” Cho Cho innocently asked, turning her head to face Sarada. Sarada decided to be a little bit less subtle.

“Because _you_ might just become that girl if you don’t quit it soon.”

In response, Cho Cho rolled her eyes and stuck her chin out. She defiantly started applying one more layer of lip gloss, _slowly_ , just to be a tease. Then she smacked her lips together and cringed.

“You’re being way too overdramatic but honestly, I think you might be onto _something_ there. This is a ‘plumping'-lip gloss," she said weirdly like her lips were made out of vax.

“Uh, and that means?” Sarada asked.

“That it makes your lips sting. Honestly, I don’t like it very much. But beauty is pain, or whatever?”

Cho Cho got up on her feet while she flipped her hair dramatically, a smooth and impressive motion that she had most definitely been practicing. Sarada considered this. Considered it to be dumb, that was.

“That’s kind of _dumb_. Why look ‘good’ if it makes your lips fall off?”

“It doesn’t actually make your lips fall off!” Cho Cho fumed furiously, pulling her hands into fists and her long caramel-colored hair bristling like the tail of an angry cat. “It’s just _mildly_ uncomfortable!”

“Well, I just think that being uncomfortable isn’t worth having boys notice you or whatever.”

Cho Cho looked at her with a tired, worn expression. Like a crumpled up old dishrag, if you will.

“We’ve been over this, _Sarada._ I don’t wear makeup for boys,” she deadpanned. “I wear it because it’s fun.”

Sarada considered this also.

“ _Fair enough_ ,” Sarada said, sinking comfortably back into the sweet, beany embrace of Cho Cho’s beanbag chair.

“I know that I’m slightly… _extravagant_ to say the least, but I have embraced that about me. Because it’s really fun!” Cho Cho explained, chuckling a bit at the end. She threw the offending plumping lip gloss in the trash, wiped her lips with a napkin and pulled out yet another slightly different but mostly extremely similar lip gloss out of her fanny pack and applied it.

“Are you happy now? This other one just looks just as good with _none_ of the sting!” Cho Cho exclaimed.

Sarada giggled. Well, maybe she had been a little bit overly judgmental. But just a tiny bit.

"As long as it doesn't cause you any literal pain it seems harmless enough," Sarada said. At Cho Cho immediately clearing her throat in a manner almost theatrical, she decided to add: “If it makes you happy, do it.”

“Exactly! That’s what I’m gonna do!” Cho Cho said while doing jazz hands _and_ the kicks, making Sarada laugh so forcefully that she started snorting through her nose like a pig.

Later on, after they had both gone to bed and Sarada was pretending to be asleep, Cho Cho stirred and murmured:

“Sarada… We’re best friends, right?”

“Yeah?” Sarada droned groggily.

“Best friends are two people who share a secret. You already know about my embarrassing baby pictures, but I don’t know about yours.”

Sarada squinted towards Cho Cho’s bed to try to make sense of her words by seeing her facial expression, but everything was kind of a dark blur without her glasses.

“You already know it,” Sarada said dismissively.

Cho Cho sputtered something that sounded like “No, I don’t!”

“You already know about my Dad not being home all that much. That’s my secret, I guess.”

“That’s not all that much of a secret.” Cho Cho said. “We literally went on a life-changing journey to find him together. But that’s all better now, isn’t it?”

“Kind of…” Sarada mumbled into her pillow and pretended to fall asleep again, just to end the conversation.

-*-

Sometimes Sarada was absolutely furious about the hole in her heart her Dad’s absence had created. She just didn’t know how to cope. Sakura, on the other hand, filled that hole with cleaning the apartment every damn day just in case he came home. Sometimes Sarada worried that her Mom’s hands would break out in a nasty rash from all of the bleach, but if they did, she never spoke of it.

 _He_ was really, _really_ trying, right? They just needed to give him a little bit of time ~~, even though twelve years was apparently not enough for him anyway anyhow.~~

Maybe just biding her time and giving _him_ twelve more years was the best option, even if it made her insides spontaneously burst into flames sometimes.

All that was left was to wait.


	2. You need him, I could be him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'm making this gay??? yayeyeyey

They were in Cho Cho’s pink and fluffy room yet again, as it was an occurring theme in their friendship for Sarada to watch Cho Cho try on different make-up products while they companionably talked about nothing and everything at the same time. Sarada couldn't help but think privately that Cho Cho already was so pretty that she didn’t need makeup. However, she would _mostly_ support Cho Cho’s endeavors into the world of false eyelash womanhood as long as she wasn’t doing it to impress a boy.

Cho Cho trying to impress boys never led anywhere good, as none of them were good enough for her in the end. It was a relief that Cho Cho thought so too, and Sarada wasn’t alone in this disdain for the losers that pursued her friend. Overprotectiveness was one thing, but sometimes the things that Sarada thought and felt made her feel alone. As in, she didn’t think that Cho Cho would agree with her if she should say them out loud. So, she just held her tongue and stayed quiet.

“What are you thinking about, Sarada?” Cho Cho asked while blending a sparkly eyeshadow with a small brush. Tiny pieces of glitter fell down from her eyes and landed on her cheeks, and Sarada suddenly couldn’t concentrate on anything else and her chest _ached_.

“ _Uh,_ I just think that your makeup is turning out really pretty,” she spat out. It was technically true.

“Oh?” Cho Cho said. “Thanks, that means a lot coming from you. _Wink_!”

Cho Cho punctuated her sentence by winking goofily and Sarada still couldn’t stop staring at the speckles of glitter on her cheeks. Some had gotten into her hair as well.

Sarada cleared her throat as if that would break her trance-like state, and decided to just look at her phone as a manner of escapism. Luckily, Boruto had posted something to distract her in their Team 7 group chat.

 **Boruto Uzumaki:** i saw a snail today on my way home

 **Mitsuki:** Effervescent….

 **Boruto Uzumaki:** uh what does that word mean

 **Sarada Uchiha:** It means happy! :) What are you guys up to?

 **Mitsuki:** We’re talking about Boruto’s snail.

 **Boruto Uzumaki** : yea sarada my story isn’t finished yet! uh after i saw the snail i got home and mom was at my grandfather’s with hima and dad worked ‘til late so i had to make my own dinner and it came out really yucky. do you think that the snail was an omen that i was going to have a gross dinner

 **Mitsuki:** Hm... Interesting.

 **Sarada Uchiha:** Can’t you cook, Boruto? I help my mom with cooking all the time.

 **Boruto Uzumaki:** hmmmmmmmmm good idea…… i should learn how to cook things other than oatmeal….

 **Mitsuki:** What’s oatmeal?

And this was when Sarada decided that she’d had a nearly lethal daily dose of just boys _in general_ and that she should look away from her phone. When she looked up, Cho Cho was still busy doing her makeup. She was the most striking and beautiful girl Sarada had ever seen, inside and out, and even though Cho Cho would certainly agree with her on that Sarada, strangely enough, didn't want to voice this opinion. Something about saying the actual words felt scary and unknown as Sarada felt it too intensely for them to not hurt like shrapnel and gravel coming out of her mouth. Like her own feelings were too grand and bombastic to ever be considered normal.

Sarada prided herself on being an honest person, but this was her second secret. Having two secrets still counted as being a mostly honest person right? A _tiny bit_ of silent, pent up resentfulness against her father and a slight _smidge_ of pent up undefined feelings towards her best friend that she couldn’t explain nor understand weren’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.

All that she could do was to wait it out. In due time, it would go away.


	3. Been dying to tell you anything you want to hear

Sarada and Mitsuki were standing by their usual meeting-up statue in the city’s downtown area, waiting for Boruto who was definitely late. Sarada, feeling unusually brave, decided to ask for a second opinion on something. Mitsuki was usually very chill and non-judgemental, right?

“Mitsuki, do you know what it’s like to have a friend that you-” Sarada began to sigh dreamily but before she could finish her sentence, Mitsuki interrupted her.

“I now know what a friend is, yes.”

“Yeah, but like… a friend you could just stare at them all day and they’re perfect to you. Can you relate, Mitsuki?” Sarada said, not really expecting an affirmative answer. But her expectations turned out to be highly presumptuous.

“Hm, quite, "Mitsuki said. “Both of those things are highly relatable to me. I think feelings that you don’t understand are an essential human tween experience.”

“What do they mean, then?”

“I guess it means that you’re human, simply put. Look, as long as what you’re feeling is genuine and you’re sure it’s not mind-control, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”

That absolutely was a fancy way of saying that Mitsuki didn’t at all know what it meant either. But there was a more pressing issue with what he had said just now.

“Mind-control? _Why_ would it be mind control?” Sarada gawked.

“That’s private,” Mitsuki smiled in that infuriatingly fake way that meant that he knew something but didn't want to say it for whatever weird Mitsuki-y reason he had at the moment.

It had probably something to do with his incredibly strange origin and even more bizarre family. Which was all extremely concerning and Sarada carried around her worry for him in the form of a pain in her chest every day, but she didn’t have the energy to focus on him right now.

She had family problems of her own that she didn’t like to talk or think about. So she understood why Mitsuki would avoid the subject, even to the point of causing so many internal problems for him that it had caused him to run away to the Land of the Earth earlier. Sarada was however kind of curious about whom Mitsuki harbored such confusing feelings for, but she didn’t ask. It better not be Cho Cho though....

-*-

“Honey, I’m home!” A man’s voice that Sarada didn’t immediately recognize called after the slam of the Uchiha household’s apartment door being shut.

“Dear!” Sakura said, bouncing up from her seat to greet her husband.

_Dad._

“Oh, hi Dad!” Sarada said, watching as Sasuke one-armed took of his traveling coat in a swift motion.

Sasuke stared at her like he didn't quite know what to do. Sarada hugged him, as she didn’t know either what there was to say.

-*-

Family dinner went by impressively smoothly, with Sakura fussing over a slight cut on Sasuke’s face and Sarada pretending like she thought it was embarrassing seeing her parents’ so comparatively lovey-dovey. But there was a thing she wanted to ask.

“Dad, Mom…” Sarada began. “What does it mean if you have a friend that you just…”

“Just what?” Sakura smirked knowingly.

“You just… I don’t know, you just stare at them all day and you feel like you’re content doing just that, forever?”

“Sounds like _you_ have a crush,” Sakura said teasingly, poking Sarada in the nose with her chopsticks. “Who is it? Is it _Boruto_?”

With those words, everything in Sarada’s world shifted. It was like the room before her eyes turned into greyscale, the birds outside the open window stopped singing like Sarada was desperately dying inside.

“No,” she choked, already feeling the hot stream of tears down her cheeks.

“What’s wrong?” Sasuke asked.

Sarada couldn’t stop crying, and every time she tried to compose herself a new sob welled up. Sakura shuffled towards her and put her arm around her, which did admittedly help.

“It’s… _not_ Boruto. It isn’t a guy.” Sarada finally managed to get out. “It’s _Cho Cho_. I just don’t know what it means.”

“Uh,” Sasuke said, not helping at all.

Sakura spent the whole evening reassuring her that it was _ok_ , it was _normal_ , it was just how she felt and they accepted her no matter what. Sasuke, however, remained quiet.

-*-

Just as Sarada was about to go to bed that night after receiving at least fifty hugs from her Mom, Sasuke came into her room and stared at her.

“Dad?” Sarada asked.

“Uh, nice room you got here,” Sasuke said awkwardly, looking around the room as to not make eye contact.

“Is that all you have to say?” Sarada snapped, surprising herself with the bile rising up in her throat.

“ _No!_ Not at all. You know, I talked it over with your Mother just now, and I think it’s time that I started living here permanently. I’ll talk to the 7th Hokage about switching jobs or something. You guys need me here more."

Happiness hit Sarada like a freight train. It was all she ever wanted.

“Uh, and also. I want to apologize for not being there for you. At all. I’m sorry,” Sasuke continued, scratching at his neck.

“I accept your apology,” Sarada choked out, already crying again.

After that, he started buying her rainbow-colored ninja paraphernalia for every birthday celebration. Turned out, her Dad didn’t need twelve more years to come around. All he needed was a wakeup call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end(?) *jazz-hands*. i might continue this if there is an interest for it, though?


	4. So say, what are you waiting for? Kiss her, kiss her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao i wrote some more... i think this will be the ending but how can i be sure, right?

Truth be told, Cho Cho wasn’t really hyper-fixated on finding a boyfriend for the sake of finding an actual boyfriend. It was more of a distraction-y distraction from other thoughts that she had basically repressed so deep into her skull that she hardly was aware of them. Maybe that was why she always ended up rejecting any boy that was actually interested in her, maybe it was why she _always-_

Oh, look, a shiny eyeshadow!

Cho Cho was in her room, hanging out with Sarada on a Thursday night. As she blended said eyeshadow, she saw Sarada’s reflection in the mirror staring at her. A lot. _Very intensely_.

This pleased Cho Cho for some reason, but she sure didn’t know why!

“What are you thinking about, Sarada?” Cho Cho asked and picked up another eyeshadow shade from the palette sitting in front of her.

Sarada mumbled something about Cho Cho's makeup in the caught-off-guard manner of someone who wasn't exactly lying but was not telling the entire truth either. Cho Cho could tell as she was _very_ intuitive about other people’s emotions ~~(not at all her own, though).~~ However, what exactly Sarada wasn’t being truthful about was a bit of a mystery to her. But, as a good friend, Cho Cho wasn’t about to force her to unveil the mystery before she was ready.

-*-

About a week later, Cho Cho received a phone call in the middle of the night. Grumbling, she reached for her pink deco:d phone and answered only after seeing that it was Sarada calling.

“What’s up, Sarada?” Cho Cho snoozed, still half asleep. “Don’t you know that I need my beauty sleep?”

Sarada laughed on the other end.

“I think you’re pretty even when you’re tired,” Sarada said, sounding surprisingly tender.

“That’s great. But like… what is so important that you have to call me in the middle of the night? Is it some _hot goss_?”

“No, I mean. I guess? I need to tell you something.”

There was a long pause where Cho Cho very seriously considered hanging up, but something kept her from pushing the _end_ -call button. That _something_ was an exciting sparkly-spark fluttery feeling in her chest. If this had been a movie and Sarada had been a guy, this would have definitely been the part where Sarada(Sarado?) would confess his undying love for Cho Cho.

Reality didn’t disappoint.

“I…” Sarada began. “I think I like you. As more than a friend.”

“ _Oh_.”

“I understand if you don’t want to be friends with me anymore after this.”

“Wha-what, _no_!” Cho Cho burst out way too loudly to not risk waking up her parents sleeping in the other room. “Of course I still want to be friends with you! It’s just that it’s the middle of the night and _we’re twelve_ and I don’t really know my own feelings yet. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“Yeah, sure,” Sarada whispered, and then hung up.

-*-

The morning after, Cho Cho ate her cereal with the sinking realization that all those moments wherein she had been hanging out with Sarada and felt things _too strong_ to be able to explain them, it had all meant something.

The fact that she was only interested in the vague idea of having a boyfriend. That she was very happy to catch Sarada staring at her when she thought that Cho Cho wouldn’t notice.

Maybe Cho Cho liked Sarada too and had just kind of been in denial. That would make sense, right?

“Mom, Dad. Am I a lesbian?” she asked her parents who were also having breakfast with her.

“You can be whatever your heart desires, honey!” Chouji reassured her only slightly humoring.

Karui nodded solemnly and went back to reading the Ninja Newspaper.

All signs pointed to yes, then.

-*-

Cho Cho and Sarada agreed to meet up soon over text message, and Cho Cho left her house trembling with excitement. As she walked to their meeting spot, she went over a script of what to say in her head a thousand times. As soon as she saw Sarada in person, though, all of that flew out the window.

“Cho Cho, I’m sorry for last night-“ Sarada began, but Cho Cho had more pressing matters to discuss.

Cho Cho reached out her hand towards Sarada like she wanted to shake hands, and blurted out the first thing she could think of.

“Doyouwanttobemygirlfriend?”

Sarada first looked taken aback, but then shyly reached out her hand and grasped Cho Cho’s in a hand-hold rather than a handshake.

“ _Yes_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *extravagant jazz hands*

**Author's Note:**

> please leave kudos and comments if you like this!


End file.
